A bikini contest is a beauty contest where women compete against each other in bikinis. Bikini contests can take place in bars, nightclubs, strip clubs, on beaches, and at beauty pageants. Related companies regularly sponsor such contests to discover and attract new talents to promote their products.[8] Competitions are held in bars and nightclubs, during intermissions of boxing or wrestling matches, and at car shows. Bodybuilding competitions may also feature bikini contest segments. Contestants often wear sashes indicating where they are from in bikini contests, in line with other beauty pageants. It is becoming more and more common for women to wear bikinis as part of the swimsuit competitions at major pageants. Bikini contests can also take place over the Internet by women submitting pictures of themselves in bikinis. Bikini competitions may be organized or sponsored by companies for marketing purposes. Miss Hawaiian Tropic is organized by Playtex to promote "Hawaiian Tropic", it's suntan lotion. NOPI runs annual "Hot Import Nights" bikini contest, which is held in conjunction with the import car-show in Atlanta, Georgia, and the annual Hooter's bikini competition.

With plastic surgery becoming affordable, available and socially acceptable more and contestants in bikini contests, like Miss Hawaiian Tropic, are appearing with breast and lip augmentations.[9] During the Ocean Pacific Pro Surfing Championships in 1983 and in 1986 at Huntington Beach, a disturbance broke out when men tried to pull the bikinis off of women on the beach and at a bikini competition.[10] When Mariyah Moten competed in the Miss Bikini of the Universe pageant in Beihai, China in 2006.[11] she was the first Pakistani girl to participate in a bikini pageant.[12] She created an outrage in her home country.[13][14][15] She also became the most photographed participant of the contest and won the Best in Media/Miss Press title.[16] A year later she won the title of won 2nd Runner-up in Miss Asia International[17] and Miss Asia World,[18] and was featured on the cover of Sexy South Asian Girls 2007 calendar.[19][20]

Fitness models at Hong Kong Bodybuilding Championships, 2012. Early women's bodybuilding was about bikini contests. After protests in the 1970s Gloria Miller Fudge started real bodybuilding.[22] Bikini competition was created within Fitness and figure competitions as a category on November 7, 2010 by IFBB to attract more female participants.[23] The first Bikini Olympia was introduced in 2010.

In 1951, the first Miss World contest, originally the Festival Bikini Contest,[24][25] was organized by Eric Morley as a mid-century advertisement for swimwear at the Festival of Britain.[26] The press welcomed the spectacle and referred to it as Miss World, and Morley registered the name as a trademark.[27] When, the winner Kiki Håkansson from Sweden, was crowned in a bikini, countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates. Håkansson remains the first and last Miss World to be crowned in her bikini,[27] a crowning that was condemned by Pope Pius XII who declared the swimsuit to be sinful.[28][29] Bikinis were outlawed from the pageant and evening gowns introduced instead.[30] After the controversy, Bikinis were banned from other beauty pageants around the world as well.[31]

Bikinis reappeared in later contests amid additional controversy. In the 1970s and 1980s the contest was regularly picketed by feminist protesters, who distributed flyers against the indecency of the contest.[32][33] The pageant disappeared for a while and in 1996, when the Miss World contest was held in Bangalore, India, dozens of Indian groups who opposed the event claimed that the contest degraded women by featuring them in bikinis. Social activist Subhashini Ali commented, "It's not an IQ test. Neither is it a charity show. It's a beauty contest in which these things have been added on as sops." The protests were so intense that the organizers were finally compelled to shift the venue of the "Swimsuit Round" to Seychelles.[34][35][36] Countering these claims, the contest organizer says that the organization has raised ₤300 million for charity in many of the countries where it operates since 2000.[37] Feminist groups published fliers against bikinis in the contest in 1970.[38]

In 2013, the Miss World event is to be hosted by Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country. The country's top Muslim clerical body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, suggested that the event should be cancelled because it promotes "hedonism, materialism, and consumerism," and is nothing but "an excuse to show women's body parts that should remain covered." The organizers later announced that the bikini would be replaced by one-piece swimsuits and even sarongs, traditional beachwear on the resort island of Bali. Critics accuse the Miss World organizers of caving to extremist pressures. They point out that Bali is a destination for tourists from across the world who often wear minimal swimwear.[29]

Vida Samadzai was the 2003 Afghani contestant for the Miss Earth title. She was severely condemned by the both Afghan authorities and community for seeking the title.[39] Samadzai was born in Afghanistan but raised in the United States. She was living in India at the time of the contest.[40] The Afghan Supreme Court banned swimsuit contests and said that appearing naked in beauty contests is completely un-Islamic, and is against Afghan tradition, human honour and dignity. Habiba Sarabi, the Afghan women affairs minister, said Samadzai's semi-naked appearance "is not women's freedom butdon my opinion is to entertain men". Afghanistan's embassy in Washington DC declared that claims by Afghan American Samadzai to represent Afghanistan is baseless.[41] Samadzai, the second woman to be crowned Miss Afghanistan after Zohra Daoud's crowning in 1972, received a number of death threats and had to be under the protection of FBI for three months.[39][42] She said she was a bit uncomfortable wearing the "70s style red bikini" and was aware of the risks involved.[40][43][44] Curiously, when Samdzai's compatriot Zallascht Sadat won the crown of Miss Deutschland 2010,[45] which she kept it through 2011 because the contest was not held that year, wearing a bikini, before going on to become Miss Globe 2012,[46] there was not much controversy.

Miss America began as a swimsuit competition between 8 contestants in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1921 as National Beauty Pageant Tournament, bikinis were dropped from its list of acceptable swimwear in 1947.[25] After the bikini is introduced in Paris in 1946, Miss America contestants are issued identical two-piece swimsuits that clearly show their midriff. The following year, the two-piece swimsuits are replaced with identical cable-knit swimsuits.[47] The pageant grew to include formalwear and talent and its popularity increased.[9] Swimsuits issued by the pageant were nicknamed "bulletproof vests". Two of the 17 swimsuit finalists wore two-piece swimsuits, and Erika Kauffman, representing Hawaii, wore the briefest bikini of all and won the swimsuit competition.[48] In 1949 the Los Angeles Times reported that Miss America BeBe Shopp on her visit to Paris said she did not approve the bikini for American girls, though she did not mind French girls wearing them.[49]Feminist protesters protested against that swimsuit in the 1960s and 1970s.[9] In 1994 Miss America Organization asked viewers to vote to decide whether to keep the swimsuit round. Viewers overwhelmingly voted to keep it.[9]

In 1997, 51 years after the bikini's debut, and 77 years after the Miss America Pageant was founded,[48] the 51 contestants in the contest were, for the first time, allowed to pick their own swimsuits.[50] On September 9, 1997, Miss Maryland Jamie Fox became the first contestant in 50 years to compete in a two-piece swimsuit during the Preliminary Swimsuit Competition at the Miss America Pageant.[51]

Has toned down its swimsuits to more modest designs from the bikinis of its inaugural year.[25]

1951: The first winner Kiki Håkansson from Sweden was crowned in a bikini. countries with religious traditions threatened to withdraw delegates.[30]Pope Pius XII condemned the crowing as sinful.[28][29]1996: Miss World contest was held in Bangalore, India, but "Swimsuit Round" was shifted to Seychelles because of intense protests.[34]2013: The swimsuit round was dropped because of Islamist protests in Bali, Indonesia, where the contest took place.[53]

The 1996 movie That Thing You Do! touches briefly on the phenomenon, with the Wonders making an appearance in a fictional beach party movie, Weekend at Party Pier. A 2001 episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch ("Beach Blanket Bizarro") also paid homage to the series, with Avalon appearing as himself. Avalon and Funicello starred in Paramount PicturesBack to the Beach in 1987, playing off their original roles and subsequent careers. Kelly Killoren Bensimon wrote in The Bikini Book, "It was really all about Annette Funicello. If the girl next door wanted to wear a bikini, then everybody wanted to wear a bikini. We didn't want to be a bad Bond girl. We all really wanted to be the good girl."

In 1962, an icon was born as Bond GirlUrsula Andress emerged from the sea wearing a white bikini in Dr. No. The Dr. No bikini scene has been quoted as one of the most memorable scenes from the British spy film series.[54] That white bikini has been described as a "defining moment in the sixties liberalization of screen eroticism".[55][56] It is regarded as one of the most important bikinis in history as sales of the two piece bikini rocketed after the appearance of Andress in Dr. No.[57]Channel 4 declared it the top bikini moment in film history,[58]Virgin Media puts it ninth in its top ten,[59] and top in the Bond girls.[60]The Herald (Glasgow) put the scene as best ever on the basis of a poll.[61]British Broadcasting Corporation observed, "So iconic was the look that it was repeated 40 years later by Halle Berry in the Bond movie Die Another Day."[56] In a survey of 1000 women to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the bikini, Ursula Andress in her white bikini was voted "The Ultimate Bikini Goddess".[62]

It also helped shape the career of Ursula Andress,[63] and the look of the quintessential Bond movie.[64] Andress said that she owed her career to that white bikini, remarking, "This bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr. No as the first Bond girl, I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent."[2][65][66] Because of the shocking effect from how revealing it was at the time, she got referred to by the joke nickname "Ursula Undress".[56] In 2001, the Dr. No bikini worn by Andress in the film sold at auction for US$61,500.[56]

Raquel Welch wore a fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. (1966) that made her an instant pin-up girl.[56] Welch was featured in the studio's advertising as "wearing mankind's first bikini"[67] and the bikini was later described as a "definitive look of the 1960s".[68] She was strategically promoted to increase the value of the film by repeating "Raquel Welch in a fur bikini" five times in the trailer making it the reason to watch the film.[69] Her role wearing the leather bikini raised Welch to a fashion icon[70] and the photo of her in the bikini became a best-selling pinup poster.[68] One author said, "although she had only three lines in the film, her luscious figure in a fur bikini made her a star and the dream girl of millions of young moviegoers".[71] When Phoebe Cates dropped her red bikini in teen filmFast Times at Ridgemont High (1982),[72] it became "the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history."[73] The bikini scenes in B.C. and Fast Times were ranked 86 and 84 in Channel 4 (UK)'s list of the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments in Film.[58] In 2011, Time listed both Welch's B.C. and Cates' Ridgemont High bikinis in the "Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture".[74]

In the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, Princess Leia (played by Carrie Fisher) wears a metal bikini,[75][76] an iconicslave girl costume often imitated by female fans at Star Wars conventions.[77] The metal string bikini consisted of a patterned copper brassiere with a curved, plunging neckline that fastened behind the neck and back with string. The thong bottom had copper plates at the groin in front and back partially covered by a red silk loincloth. Leia wore high leather boots, a hair fastener that positioned her braided ponytail to cascade over her right shoulder, two bracelets, and a snake arm-wrap. She also wore a chain and collar that bound her to Jabba the Hutt, her captor, which she used to kill him.[78] The costume was made of brass and was so uncomfortable that actress Carrie Fisher described it as "what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell."[77] The slave Leia costume has been elevated to pop culture icon status, spawning various spoofs and parodies (notably the episode of Friends, "The One with the Princess Leia Fantasy") and even a dedicated fansite.[79]

The promotional cinema poster for For Your Eyes Only (1981), the twelfth spy film in the James Bond series, featured a woman holding a crossbow photographed from behind in a bikini bottom with half of her buttocks exposed. Morgan Kane, the photographer, achieved the skimpy look bay making model wear her bikini bottom backwards.[82] The poster caused some furore—largely in the US—with The Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times edited out everything above the knee,[83] while the Pittsburgh Press editors painted a pair of shorts over the legs.[84] There was significant speculation as to identity of the model with three models claimed the thighs in question – Nancy Stafford, Jane Sumner and Joyce Bartle – before photographer Morgan Kane identified the model to be Bartle, though the arm holding a crossbow belongs to Sumner.[83][85]

Since 1964 Sports Illustrated publishes an annual swimsuit issue featuring bikini-clad fashion models on the cover and a pictorial section. The issues has become an cultural icon.[97] For the original swimsuit issue, Sports Illustrated editor Andre Laguerre asked fashion reporter Jule Campbell to help find a model for the issue.[98] She found Berlin-born fashion model Babette March and featured her on the cover, wearing a white bikini, wading in the surf on Cozumel, Mexico. The issue was the first Swimsuit Issue.[56] The Swimsuit Issue became an annual publication of the magazine, featuring fashion models wearing swimwear in exotic locales. Inclusion is considered a stick by which supermodels are measured.[99] In addition, the issue is a media nexus that in 2005 carried $35 million in advertising.[99]

New issues come out around the middle of February or later. First published in 1964, it is credited with making the bikini a legitimate piece of apparel.[100] The issue that got the most letters was the 1978 issue.[101] The best selling issue was the 25th Anniversary Issue with Kathy Ireland on the cover in 1989.[101]Media Watch, a feminist newsletter reported protests at the Time-Life Building. Magazines like Sport and Ebony Man publishes their own versions, while many other magazines imitate the swimsuit issue. Spin brings out a parody of the swimsuit issues.[97]

Urbe Bikini (UB) is a Venezuelan, Maxim-styled monthly created by Urbe's editor-in-chief & creative director, Gabriel Torrelles and publisher, Carlos Lizarralde, who sold the company to Cadena Capriles, the largest publisher in Venezuela. It is the largest circulation glossy in the country and a cultural and circulation phenomenon in itself for more than 10 years. Sports magazines like Inside Sport or automotive magazines like the Lowrider Magazine regularly features bikini-clad women on the cover to appeal to a predominantly young male audience.[102][103] In 2006, Maxim magazine created a 33 metres (108 ft) wide vinyl-mesh bikini in the desert of southern Nevada, United States featuring Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives, claiming that it could be seen from outer space.[7]

In September 2011, Lilac magazine has become the first Arabic magazine to show a cover with a bikini. The 22-year-old model, Huda Naccache, from Haifa, Israel is pictured posing in a black sequinned bikini.[104]Young Animal (Yangu Animaru) is a magazine published by Hakusensha in Japan that features about 288 black and white pulp pages of seinenmanga and scantily clad women. wrapped in about 20 slick pages of color photos of teen age girls (pop stars and gravure idols) topless or in bikinis. Editor of the bulletin of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of AmericaJean Rabe resigned the post on June 5, 2013 in the course of a controversy about sexism[105] cover in the image of no. 200 of the Bulletin, depicting a woman in a scalemail bikini.[106]

The Bikini Planet is a science fiction comedy written by David S. Garnett and released exclusively in the United Kingdom as a paperback. It was written as a sub-sequel to an earlier story by Garnett in 1994, entitled Stargonauts, and features some of its settings and characters.

When Jayne Mansfield and her husband Miklós Hargitay toured for stage shows, newspapers wrote that Mansfield convinced the rural population that she owned more bikinis than anyone.[122] She showed a fair amount of her 40-inch (1,000 mm) bust, as well as her midriff and legs, in the leopard-spot bikini she wore for her stage shows.[123] Kathryn Wexler of The Miami Herald wrote, "In the beginning as we know it, there was Jayne Mansfield. Here she preens in leopard-print or striped bikinis, sucking in air to showcase her well noted physical assets."[124] Her leopard-skin bikini remains one of the earlier specimens of the fashion.[125]

In February 1964, Scandinavian Airlines placed an advertisement in newspapers and magazines throughout America. It featured a bikini-clad blonde model exposing her bellybutton posing on a rock above the caption "What to show your wife in Scandinavia." The image that appeared in most publications had the belly button removed to conform to the regulations.[131][132]

Ultra-cheap UK airline Ryanair publishes its Annual Charity Calendar featuring the Cabin crew in bikinis.[133] But when Thai low cost airline Nok Air ran a Facebook contest featuring models from the men's magazine Maxim dressed in yellow bikinis, the brand color of the airline, the Thai Ministry of Culture spoke against it for focussing on Thailand's bad reputation.[134][135] In Russia that same year, the top airline Aeroflot and low cost airline Avianova stirred up a row over bikinis in 2010. Aeroflot published a calnder featuring bikini clad and naked women holding wings, while Avianova's promotional YouTube video showing a model in bikini washing its plane became a hit.[136]

Go-go dancers perform as a dancer to fast, energetic, popular music are employed to entertain crowds in places such as barss, nightclubs and discotheques in a sexually exciting manner while wearing very little clothing, often a bikini.[143][144][145] Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s, by some accounts when women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City began to get up on tables and dance the twist.[146] Other accounts claim that go-go dancing originated at, and was named for, the very popular South L.A. rock club Whiskey A Go Go which opened in January 1964.[147] Many 1960s-era clubgoers wore miniskirts and knee-high, high-heeled boots, which eventually came to be called go-go boots, to night clubs. On June 19, 1964,[148]

Carol Doda, a 26 years old Go-go dancer of Condor Club in San Francisco, the Condor's publicist, "Big" Davy Rosenberg gave Doda a "monokini" topless swimsuit designed by Rudi Gernreich.[149][150] She performed topless that night, the first noted entertainer of the era to do so. The act was an instant success.[149] Two months after she started her semi-nude performances, the rest of San Francisco's Broadway was topless, followed soon after by entertainers across America.[150] In 2012, the city of San Antonio amended its city ordinances dealing with "sexually oriented businesses" redefining "nudity" to include "a state of dress that fails to completely and opaquely cover...the entire female breast".[151] Whereas female dancers had previously been able to avoid being classified as "nude" by wearing pasties over their nipples, the new law required that they wear at minimum a bra or bikini top.[152]

The project was spawned by an initial hoax movement in January 2014, which attempted to popularize the "bikini bridge" as a trend on social media. As an extension of the thigh gap trend, a bikini bridge consists of a bikini bottom suspended between a woman's hips, exposing a "bridge" on the pelvis. Users of the 4chan board "/b/" posted manipulated images, fake celebrity testimonials, and other content relating to bikini bridges on social networks such as Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. After generating interest from others, they began to circulate the content on "parts of the Internet known to be biased on the subject of weight" to provoke negative reactions. The meme attracted media attention with some outlets initially reporting on it as if it were an actual trend, such as the Daily Mail, who dubbed it a "disturbing new selfie fad".[183][184][185][186]